Friday, 15 July 2016

Last weekend was Newcastle Brickfest. I went to the first one in 2014, and pictures can be seen here. This was at the same location, but had been spread over two days, with ticketed entrance times and a resulting decrease in crowd crush. There was a variety of Lego on display, as well as a few members of the 501st Legion, Southern Cross Garrison.

Large Angry Unikitty

Classic Space- still my favourite.

Let it snow!

Who ya gonna call?

Jinkies!

Dragons vs vikings

Cherry blossom tree

A local school

There were some cool X-Files vignettes:

Star Wars was again popular:

I really liked these Alice in Wonderland vignettes:

The Lego Group doesn't make military themed bits, but there are after-market weapons and helmets available to make dioramas like this one, or the war memorial in the town above:

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Eucalyptus Bowl! My last run at this tourney was in 2013, with the disastrous Vampire team, Bite Club. This time, I took my freshly-painted Chaos Dwarves, the Thumper Lumpers. I had another commitment over the weekend, so only played five matches.

Eucalyptus Bowl 2016 under way

The format: 6 games, resurrection, 125kgp*, up to one skill per player, no doubles, only two matching skills from non-General types.

The Thumper Lumpers were pretty solid:

Two Bull Centaurs with Break Tackle

Six Chaos Dwarves: two Stand Firm, two Mighty Blow, two Guard

Four Hobgoblins, two with Sure Hands

Three rerolls

The Thumper Lumpers- Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarves

Match 1:

I played Peakie's Pro Elves, Lateralis. Pro Elves are my favourite team due to their flexibility, and Pete had a good roster with plenty of Wrestle. I had some below-average dice rolling, and couldn't break his armour even with mighty blow. I went down hard, 3-0.

Pro Elves swoop into the Chaos Dwarf backfield

Match 2:

Another Elf team- Sumbloke's Dark Elves, Fifty. This time, things went my way and despite only causing one casualty I won this one with a traditional Dwarven 2-1 grind.

Bull Centaurs corral a Dark Elf Blitzer- she still managed to score!

Match 3:

More Elves for me to hit! It was Vimes and his High Elves (The Js) this time around. I seem to play Vimes at every tourney, which is great because he's a fun opponent and always a pleasure to play. This game was no exception, with a prolonged tussle over the ball leading me to a very close 2-1 victory. I did inflict 4-0 casualties, including killing one of his elves.

High Elves pour into the Chaos Dwarf grinder- the ball is an afterthought!

Match 4:

This was against Redcard and his Goblins, Grots-a-Lot. He was secret-weapon heavy, with two ball-and-chain players, three Trolls including Ripper Bolgrot, a chainsaw, and a pogo-stick. He received, and I had to rely on my armour and a lot of luck to weather the storm in the first half. Somehow, I survived and stopped him from scoring! Then all his secret weapons got sent off (he failed a bribe roll against the referee) and he had a shocking second half, with hiss Trolls going Stupid at key moments, and multiple 1s being rolled. I scored, leaving him a slim chance to score by throwing a Goblin downfield, but he was tackled by a Chaos Dwarf leaving me the 1-0 win.

Chaos Dwarves sustain a Goblin battering- the pogo jumper has the ball!

Match 5:

Another Elf team! Irgy had his High Elves, the Golden Unicorns. I repeated my poor ability to break armour and was swiftly 1-0 down. I aimed to equalise and drag the game out to a draw rather than let him score again and win 2-1. Against a dogged defence, I got myself into a position to score on the last turn. Without getting technical, I had a 98.7% chance of success- which I failed! Leaving Irgy with a 1-0 win, and myself with a 3-0-2 W-D-L overall result.

Chaos Dwarves crash into the High Elf defence, but can't reach the endzone

The tourney's overall winner was JoeKano with Amazons. I was pleasantly surprised to receive an award for 'Toughest Defence', and came 27th out of 46 overall, despite playing only five games.

The glittering prizes

Loot I picked up: Eucalyptus Brew beer, dice and stubby holder; a copy of the fun abstract game Qwirkle, and a Eucalyptus Bowl shotglass!

Spoils of war!

I was happy with my team roster. Break Tackle was more useful than Block would have been on my Bull Centaurs, and the other skills were all much used. Three rerolls was almost too much for my playstyle, so I might consider making a few tweaks around that.

As with so many Australian Blood Bowl tournaments, it was a lot of fun and great to see old mates again.

With this tourney over, I have played nineteen of the official twenty-four teams! Almost there!